This is a discussion thread for developers to give me their thoughts as Hello=) been poking me about, which I would usually do on the private section but there's no secret here so it makes no sense to make the discussion public for sake of transparency.
Keep in mind changes may or may not be backported to TMWA. Legacy/Evolved are theoretically the same game, after all, but Evolved has more support than Legacy to go ahead. Nothing here is final, they're still concepts. And as any conceptual work, final implementation may differ, and will only go live after testing.
The TL;DR is: Rescuing Fate's original plan trying to purge as minimum content as possible, even if that means partially purging player progress.
Changes to Magic Schools
Transmutation is merged with crafting. Items are always crafted with magically enhanced ore, so the process of producing an iron ingot for armor is no longer just "use an oven" but "use transmutation magic, or have an NPC use it for you".
Therefore, crafting will be restricted by your transmutation school level.
Dark Magic ceases to be a Magic School.
Astral Magic is branched in "Nature Bias" and "Dark Bias", which are current astral and dark magic schools respectively.
Poison dart is moved to Nature Magic
The other differences in the biases are ruled by https://git.themanaworld.org/evolved/se ... #note_3446 (aka. current consensus)
Life Magic may also have the same biases from Astral Magic, see note below
Changes to spell acquisition
Apart from a couple spells like "hug", all spells must be learnt before being used.
You are thus forced to do their quests in order to use them, instead of just looking up at the wiki.
The five special spells (Joyplim ─ teached by the mana stone ─ and the herb summons) will likely be either learnable by magic scrolls, or be allowed to use regardless of "learning" them, but likely the scrolls as it is also done on Evolved.
Changes to #jande and #manatez
They're added to Astral Magic, and are learned by going to the library and reading the history of TMW. Maybe we can have a quizz you need to respond before learning the spells.
Changes to Mana Seed
Original Fate's plan predict five mana seeds, one for each tier of magic.
This means that mana seed will start informing this ("this mana seed can no longer give you any power"), and there'll be maps with magic restriction (can only be accessed depending on your Magic Skill level), where the higher tier mana seeds are (Fate did left their sprites behind, no worries here).
Changes to Betsanc, Asorm, Runners, and all support magic
No longer work on non-party members.
When used, causes the timestamp and magic used to be recorded (including #itenplz)
If any party mate kills a monster nearby and you used support magic (based on timestamp), you receive a bonus experience
If you attack or use war magic, the timestamp is reset.
Changes to offensive spells
I don't know if TMWA can or cannot have an elemental system. But otherwise, they'll be refactored to use the same logic as Moubootaur Legends:
One single target, one area of damage, and one nuke for each element.
Fate had planned several skills, but most of them will either be surpassed by this, or were already hacked on a lower tier. Only fire wall will be missing and if implemented, will be an Evolved exclusive skill (possibly replacing 'hide').
Changes to magic level up
There are four things you can currently advance on:
Control (#abizit)
Magic Level
School Level
Spell Level
Evolved supports spell levels while TMWA doesn't. As usual, advancing on school level will reduce the spell costs and eliminate the need for reagents. School Level cannot be greater than general magic level. Control determines the odds of the spell failing or backfiring. Therefore, only spell level (which affects power) is undecided.
This however has a major balance flaw: Getting stronger in game makes obtaining reagents easier and increases your MP bar. So further reducing the need will both affect economy as increase too much the disparity. So it can't be done as is. And if nerfed in a general way, then raising school level isn't useful.
This requires more discussion. And please, don't ask for impossible fixes this time
Changes to Specialization
As originally planned by Fate, at Tier 4 and Tier 5, starts mastery. At first you must decide a general branch you'll follow (you can only bring three of the five schools to T4, and you can't combine both astral + war), and only one school can be advanced to tier 5.
Changes to Nature Magic
Nature magic is where most of the buffs (e.g. #haste) are. I think it'll need some refactoring in overall, or it'll fall short.
Changes to Focus
They're simply too strong. A nerf is necessary, but it is low priority and I'll not disclose here what my plan would be as there's none. As an example, ragging may start raising double attack instead of critical, that would already be a nerf. But regardless of how the nerf is done, a nerf is needed to several of them.
Nerfs are annoying, but they'll like happen Fate-style (one day, players woke up and BAM! Their spells were dealing 90% less damage. But if they maxed out Astral Soul and gave up on trying to recover e.g. critical rate, they could recover this damage. That's partially how focus was implemented btw).
The fact that all focuses are affected by a "primary stat" is also a source of woes in case of speed focus, for example.
Changes to Tutorial
Confringo is removed.
Morgan is removed.
You learn the basic non-elemental magic attack (...which, currently, is confringo) with Tanisha, compulsorily, instead of needing to add 5 intelligence points. Same goes for Slingshot. So yes, prepare to need to help Tanisha three times.
Life Magic & Necromancy
In my opinion, even necromancy belongs to Life Magic. UnLife is still a form of life.
So Life Magic has either the use of reagents e.g. Lifestones, or the use of your own vital force e.g. necromancy.
Meaning that Life Magic may also have a Nature Bias vs Dark Bias. It would be the same as currently, but when/if you decide on the dark magic bias you would lose access to lay on hands. (But Orum or Waric would be ever so kind to teach you a replacement, and right now, it would recycle the same quest for poison dart which is going to be moved to Nature Magic).
General Thoughts
In TMW, I want everyone born a mage, knowing basic spells and magic as common knowledge, just needing to decide to pursue this knowledge or leave it in second plan. Even the most average NPC is supposed to be able to do basic magic tricks and just not doing because they have better things to spend their time on. Because they never put their mind in learning or improving magic, it obviously won't be useful in practice, but the general knowledge and sensation is there.
No immediate changes to grey bar, but I'm not sure how I'll do for Evolved (if we'll keep grey bar there or not). I am thinking I'll end up being forced to add MATK bonus and implement grey bar, unfortunately.
Discussion is now open, and the developer discussion ticket is: https://git.themanaworld.org/evolved/se ... -/issues/5
Please keep specifics (e.g. exact values) on the ticket. Forum is for more general discussion.